On Saturday 28th February I attended Creating Picture Books and listened to Margaret Hamilton and Dee Huxley talk and present for five wonderful hours. Did I learn something? Lots. Did I enjoy it? Heaps. Would I recommend this course? YES.
Dee is passionate about her work and all those students in her art classes are very lucky indeed. As I watched Dee display and talk about her portfolio, I desperately wished for just a smidgen of artistic talent.
Margaret is a wealth of information on every aspect of picture book publication and presentation. Listening to her stories is both informative and encouraging. Not that she said it was easy but seeing a publisher's love for a book they 'just had to publish' - well, it doesn't get more inspiring than that.
So often I attend courses - and no matter how interested I am in the subject matter - I find myself bored part way through. Not this time. This course is entertaining and Margaret and Dee make a great tag team. The hardest thing for me was letting go of the original Stephen Michael King sketches from Janeen Brian's Where Does Thursday Go? It's one of my favourite picture books and it was exciting to hold those drawings in my hands.
If anyone is interested Creating Picture Books course information can be downloaded
here. - Sandy Fussell
Feedback from attendees:
I really enjoyed learning about the technical aspect of picture book production: colour printing, page lay-out and design, and so on. I also found the presenters obvious preference for much shorter picture book texts enlightening. I have several picture book texts which are far fewer than 450 words; I now feel more confident to run with these rather than feeling the pressure to flesh them out. - Kathryn
It was particularly interesting to learn about the illustrators experience and to see the samples of books in various production stages that Margaret offered - Lili
It was encouraging to see both Marg and Dee being so enthusiastic and passionate about such a treasured part of the publishing industry - that of picture books - Anke
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On Wednesday 31st July 2009 120 local school children and their teachers participated in the 2nd South Coast Illawarra CBCA Literary Luncheon at the Fraternity Club in Fairy Meadow. Guests were entertained by cartoonist 'Cartoon Dave' (Dave Hackett) who taught everyone to draw 'ELVIS'. It's hard to draw when you're laughing out loud!
On the Southside Festival the Illawarra South Coast CBCA presented Fiction and Fun with authors Richard Harland, Sue Whiting, Di Bates and Bill Condon.
On Wednesday 11 March a lucky group of adults and children gathered in Wollongong library to hear the author and illustrator of the best-selling Max Remy Super Spy series. The event was sponsored by the Wollongong City Council Library and funded by the CBCA ALOUD Program
Authors are good with words. And when Di Bates referred to the group of friends and well-wishers who had gathered to celebrate her Lady Cutler award as a family, she had chosen exactly the right word.
On 3 December fifty members and friends of the CBCA gathered at the Villa D Oro, Wollongong to celebrate Christmas and a wonderful year of children's literature.
Mark's latest release Tomorrow (ABC Books) was the subject of heated bidding at the fund raiser auction which followed.